US Flu season is getting worse and we have shut down the CDC

This flu season is seeming unusually dangerous this time. We already got hints of a problem back in November and December, when it came up in a way that the flu vaccine was not at all so powerful upon the dominant effort that is being circulated this year, which is named as H3N2.

Till this last Friday, it seemed as if the top of the flu period might have occurred just around the new year 2018, as shown in this chart from the CDC below:

The chart above shows us a peak in the somewhat last week of 2017, and then the fraction of listed cases seemed to be decline. But then on this Friday, the CDC reported this alarming inclination:

That red line you are seeing on the chart above which is pinning upward in the middle of the chart is showing the number of flu-like predicaments told by the CDC’s national network this year.

Rather than going down to the bottom, the trend gives us a sharp rise over the past two weeks. We don’t exactly know what is it — these are not laboratory-confirmed flu cases — but more people are getting sick with this and with having the government closed down, a very tough situation grows graver.

Most of the CDC staff are literally to be forced to sit on their hands when they will be working — many of the staffs want to even work, but they won’t be allowed to do any. What’s particularly frustrating (and destructive) is that the U.S. will almost absolutely be paying all federal employees for this forced time off, as it did in previous shutdowns.

We also need a genuine plan to make the new flu vaccine. The U.S. still relies on vaccines that are produced by growing the virus in chicken eggs, a decades-old system.

Oh, and one more crucial thing: The flu shot cannot actually able to give you the flu. I suggest this only because anti-vaxxers are still continuing to promote this remarkable myth; 80% of people who have come down with the flu this year did not get vaccinated.

About the author

Dr. Michael Oliver

He is a medical practitioner in Atlanta Georgia. He writes columns for the State Herald. He also holds a diploma in psychology from the University of Nevada. He also has an upcoming book on the same subject. While not writing or treating people he runs free clinic throughout the state.